In the Queen's Diamond Jubilee year, the popularity of her favourite dog is on
the rise.

There’s no doubt about it: jubilee fever is taking hold. One unexpected manifestation has been reported by the Find a Puppy website, which has seen a sudden rise of interest in the royal dog.

Numbers looking for the Pembroke Welsh corgi puppies – the Queen’s favourite – have increased by 37 per cent in the past four months; some 5,783 searches for the breed since the start of the year. The Kennel Club also informs us that registration of Pembroke Welsh corgi puppies leapt in the first quarter of this year — to 17.

Admittedly, that’s not a huge number, but it’s considerably better than the same period last year, when a mere 10 were registered. Unless the rise can be explained by a jubilee present to Her Majesty – in which case I apologise to Prince Philip if I’ve spoilt his surprise – corgis are, among the most loyal of loyal households, back in vogue.

And about time, too. The breed was last fashionable between the wars. There was nothing exceptional about George VI’s preference, when, as Duke of York, he bought a corgi called Dookie in 1933. Dookie was joined by Jane: the union was blessed with a litter, from which Crackers and Carol were kept. Princess Elizabeth was given her first corgi, Susan, as an 18th birthday present. It was towards the end of the Second World War, and Susan must have seemed an emblem of the peaceful domestic world that had been disrupted. In time, Susan became a matriarch, the head of a dynasty of corgis, whose youngest members – Monty, Willow and Holly – are alive to this day.

Now, it may seem that the Queen’s decision to stick to corgis, when they’re all but forgotten by the rest of the world, is an example of immutability of royal tastes, which, if you look at Prince Charles’s overcoats, appear to have got frozen at some point in the early 20th century.

But there has also been innovation. Cross-breeding with Princess Margaret’s cheeky dachshund Pipkin produced the Dorgi. It was, my sources tell me, a pure accident – these things happen, even in the best regulated families – but evidently a happy one, since Her Majesty continues to own Cider, Candy and Vulcan: Dorgis every one.

Outside Buckingham Palace, Windsor and Balmoral, corgis have been distinctly down on their luck. Dogs are as subject to the caprices of human affection as anything else. James I loved his hunting dogs, and flew into a passion when his Queen, Anne of Denmark, accidentally shot his Jewel with a bow and arrow (he then built her the Queen’s House at Greenwich to make up for his fury). Charles II gave his name to a big-eyed, silken-coated spaniel which, as Elvis would have said, “ain’t never caught a rabbit”.

In the 18th century, aristocrats favoured the lean wolfhounds seen in Grand Tour portraits by Pompeo Batoni as they suggested swaggering masculinity. Dickens, like other property owners, kept mastiffs at Gad’s Hill, his country house, but Edward VII – not having to worry personally about the security of the crown jewels – was happy with a terrier called Caesar, perhaps conscious of the humorous contrast that the little dog made with his own portly physique.

When Queen Victoria began to add collies to her kennel of dogs in the 1860s, sheepdogs soon became society’s dog of choice. Similarly, interest in cocker spaniels has soared since the Duchess of Cambridge acquired one. Handbag dogs – anathema to country folk – have become something of a craze after being accessorised by Paris Hilton and Cheryl Cole. Do owners look like their dogs, or vice versa? Floppy-looking hippies liked Afghans. Perhaps that’s why the corgi – stocky and low to the ground – has been neglected: not everyone would wish to identify with the image.

While many of today’s popular dogs – notably the ubiquitous Labrador retriever – were bred for field sports, the corgi sprang from the farmyard. Pembroke Welsh corgis were used to herd cattle, and Cardigan Welsh corgis to drive them. They were strong enough to nip at their heels but low enough not to get kicked. They have a big dog’s character, but carry it on short legs.

The revival of interest is welcome, because numbers of both breeds, already falling, plunged after the EU banned tail-docking. As the corgi breeder Diana King observes: “If you’ve got something about three or four inches long that hangs down the back looking like a sausage, it’s not too attractive.” Breeding a naturally bob-tailed strain might be the answer.

Meanwhile, let’s toast the Queen for yet another blessing of her reign. Long life to Her Majesty – and to the corgi.